Sending file from iOS to PHP using POST

Question

I'm trying to send an audio file to a PHP server. Here is the Objective-C code:

NSData *data = [NSData dataWithContentsOfFile:filePath];

NSLog(@"File Size: %i",[data length]);

//set up request
NSMutableURLRequest *request= [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] init];
[request setURL:[NSURL URLWithString:urlString]];
[request setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];

//required xtra info
NSString *boundary = @"---------------------------14737809831466499882746641449";
NSString *contentType = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"multipart/form-data; boundary=%@", boundary];
[request addValue:contentType forHTTPHeaderField: @"Content-Type"];

//body of the post
NSMutableData *postbody = [NSMutableData data];
[postbody appendData:[[NSString stringWithFormat:@"\r\n--%@--\r\n", boundary] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
[postbody appendData:[[NSString stringWithFormat:@"Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"thefile\"; filename=\"recording\"\r\n"] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
[postbody appendData:[[NSString stringWithString:@"Content-Type: application/octet-stream\r\n"] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
[postbody appendData:data];
[postbody appendData:[[NSString stringWithFormat:@"\r\n--%@--\r\n", boundary] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];

[request setHTTPBody:postbody];
apiConnection = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:request delegate:self];

And here is the PHP code:

if (is_uploaded_file($_FILES['thefile']['tmp_name'])) {
    echo "FILE NAME: ".$_FILES['thefile']['name'];
} else {
    echo "Nothing";
}

The File Size varies depending on the length of audio being recorded, but there is data.

I'm getting a response of "Nothing".

Answer 1

To debug: on the PHP side, try:

$file = $_POST['name'];
echo $file

Try the following code segment in place of your current code. Change the url (www.yourWebAddress.com) and script name to appropriate values for your problem.

NSData *data = [NSData dataWithContentsOfFile:filePath];
NSMutableString *urlString = [[NSMutableString alloc] initWithFormat:@"name=thefile&&filename=recording"];
[urlString appendFormat:@"%@", data];
NSData *postData = [urlString dataUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding 
                                   allowLossyConversion:YES];
NSString *postLength = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", [postData length]];
NSString *baseurl = @"https://www.yourWebAddress.com/yourServerScript.php"; 

NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:baseurl];
NSMutableURLRequest *urlRequest = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:url];
[urlRequest setHTTPMethod: @"POST"];
[urlRequest setValue:postLength forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Length"];
[urlRequest setValue:@"application/x-www-form-urlencoded" 
          forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Type"];
[urlRequest setHTTPBody:postData];

NSURLConnection *connection = [NSURLConnection connectionWithRequest:urlRequest delegate:self];
[connection start];

NSLog(@"Started!");

On the server end, I have the following code:

<?php

    $name  = $_POST['name'];
    $filename  = $_POST['filename'];
    echo "Name = '" . $name . "', filename = '" . $filename . "'.";

    error_log ( "Name = '" . $name . "', filename = '" . $filename . "'." );

?>

I received the following output:

[23-May-2012 11:56:18] Name = 'thefile', filename = 'recording'.

I don't know why it is not working for you. You must have a missing step. Try commenting out the two lines in the url POST code above that references 'data' to see that you can get at the least the plain text for name and filename to your server end.

Good luck!

Answer 2

Try encoding your binary data before you send it over the pipe (and then decode when it gets to the other end). See this SO thread for ideas for Base64 encoding code.